


hollow like me

by tinytree



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, POV Second Person, Self-Harm, So much angst, Suicidal Ideation, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7536979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinytree/pseuds/tinytree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn’t something that could fix everything, but hopefully there’s a start hidden somewhere among the shards, in something much more broken than you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hollow like me

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: triggering content! this is very emo i am sorry  
> fun fact that isn't very fun: i am also a sad individual so i make my characters hurt i am sorry

_"Hollow,"_ you'd think to yourself, to describe the only feeling you can fathom. Because when people think of the word "empty", they think of finished bags of cookies with even the crumbs scavenged, glasses filled with water half ways to argue whether or not to view the glass as half filled or not.

    This type of empty is the nonexistent feeling you get when you find yourself roaming empty streets at three a.m for no reason other than feeling obligated to, the empty where covering the snake that coils around your body isn’t enough to hide the effects from the past years, the kind of empty when leaving a paper blank when asked “how do you feel” is the only way to explain yourself.

    Except you still volunteer at reconstructional committees with gums showing to the sun and share the occasional weekend at home with your mother. Although this is all a routine you’ve seemed to convict yourself to, it was a way to keep yourself numb.

    You look happy yes, or content at the most, but the scars that tatter your skin proved otherwise.

    You stare blankly at the scars on your wrists and reminisce the moments when you would have given _anything_ to feel something-- A tinge on your skin as it feels its surface split in two, or even the throbbing of your flesh before you realized you were going too deep. A natural caution tape that tightens against your fingers when you realize that you’ve made a cut, a warning sign that embodies a mother telling her child that you’ll hurt yourself if you play with scissors. But nothing, there was always emptiness.  

    You look in the mirror, surpassing the chips in the glass and the specks that accompanied them, only to stare at a menacing reflection that only knew to cry.

    You stop.

    To your left is a door frame lined with vertical lines next to height measurements. When you were five you couldn’t reach to see your reflection, maybe at the time it was for the best. As you got older you slowly saw the changes in your skin, your face, your mouth. As you grew, your skin seemed to slowly drain, the rosy tint in your cheeks faded and the lines at the corners of your mouth became a trench filled with tears.

    The bags under your eyes weren’t only caused from staying up because of the loud city life, or the tireless nights of you staring at the ceiling, forming clouds and shapes in the old paint. You weren’t just sleep deprived, the physical tiredness couldn’t surpass the overall tiredness of your well being. You weren’t tired, your soul was.

    Your gaze looks down and meets your hands. The shock is gone now and the trembling grasp on the knife loosens its hold.

    You think of the people who love you, or at least the people you would assume care about you, as a way to keep yourself grounded. You’ve had these thoughts before, but never has bad as bringing a knife to your skin. Sure, you spent most days crossing streets without looking both ways or even walking carelessly across a bridge, but never like this. Never like this.

    You thought of all the moments that led to this one, this moment where you feel as if the wind has been knocked out of you. You’ve grown tired of parading in this ugly facade of a life you live. The life where everyone looks up to you, where everyone smiles and waves as you cross them. You are forced to only smile and nod back, to be polite of course and no less. They look up to you, the boy who saved No.6, the boy who destroyed the wall and allowed people to see the mirage they faced every day. Subconsciously, they have set these great expectations for you, the former Chronos member. They knew you had the capability to do great things but you never saw the point.

    Life is something people do as a way to pass time, and you were tired of watching the hands of the clock spin and spin. It made you dizzy, your stomach churning, head nauseating. You were tired of making small talk with people friends, smiling everyday to prove absolutely anything besides the fact that you were empty. You never understood life growing up and to this day, you haven’t the slightest clue either.

    That’s what got you, the uncertainty of life’s purpose. You’ve asked around and always got the same answers; love, family, success.

    But none of this seemed to matter to you. Well, family yes. You loved your mother more than anything else in the world but this was besides the point. You can’t picture yourself married with children, let alone dating another. You were a bit too much of everything.

    You were _too_ naive.

 _Too_ dense.

 _Too_ polite.

 _Too_ distant

 _Too_ much.

    It didn’t take long to resonate with you with why Nezumi left. He got what he wanted and you got a dead friend.

    It all seemed like some sick joke and you were the punchline.

    The entirety of it all was just so miraculous. You never knew your father, you grew up in a city you’ve came to realize was a farce, your mother had her own secrets you were never aware of, and you lost the only real friend you’ve ever had. You were exposed to the West Block with eager eyes and trembling hands, being there was like standing before a starved beast. Your reality was shaken, poked, and prodded with. To share it with only one other person, who saved you when he was never shown the time of day, was something you held dearly. It was never something you intended to do, but you did anyway.

    But he left. He left you with a kiss that tasted all too sweet for someone as bitter as he.

    Yet he still seemed to leave something for you when he left. He showed you to never expect things from anyone. If anything, you should expect the worse so if they let you down, you were already prepared for the break.

    So you applied this logic to yourself. You don’t expect anything from yourself because you figure there’s no point when you’re _too_ impotent to do anything worthwhile. Plus, people all die eventually, including you. This scared you.

    You’ve been thinking about death a lot lately. Not in the sense you would take your own life, well until this moment now but besides that-- but like a novel you purchase from the bookstore that you never got around to read. It sits atop piles of other books you’ve picked out on whims, but the blanket of dust that covers it, indicates it’s more a decoration than anything else.

    You think a lot about death but you never thought about suicide as in taking your life. You would see it more as a horrible sitcom that you somehow haven’t bothered to change the channel for.

    If death were to take you, you would hope it be a lot like a car crash, or some big accident. Maybe then the mess of the damage around you would be worth worrying about more than your fading heartbeat.

    The thought of someone finding your body swaying softly from a rope, or hunched over by empty bottles of pills, made you feel more guilty than being dead. God forbid, or whatever entity people seem to look up to, your mother finds you. Her pretty eyes don’t deserve the tears, or the heartbreak.

    You stopped thinking about the possibility of Nezumi finding you when you realize he probably wouldn’t care if he did. Then again, there’s always the chance of no one ever finding you or even noticing you were.

    You knew this wouldn’t be true, though.

    You have too many things to do, too many people to “inspire”, you can’t possibly do something so _selfish_.

    So you kiss your knuckles before looking at the mirror one last time.

    You hate the person who you see. You hate the white hair, the red eyes, the scar.

    But you also hate the sense of worthlessness, the emptiness. It was something that seemed to grow apart of you every time you saw yourself, although you never wanted it to. But then again, we don’t always get what we want.

    The menacing reflection stares back at you with wet eyes. Without a second thought, you punch it with full force, already feeling the blood drip down your hand when you made contact with the glass. To say the least, it was painful but still oddly satisfying.

    You wash your hands, clean your cuts and patch them up, already tossing the knife away in one swift movement.

 

    This wasn’t something that could fix everything, but hopefully there’s a start hidden somewhere among the shards, in something much more broken than you are.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the ending is rushed i am sorry i was tired i just wanted to get this over with  
> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!!


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